1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to a grounding contact for a high speed, high density connector, particularly to a grounding contact having contact portions which engage with contact traces on a mated daughter card without scraping the contact traces.
2. The Prior Art
Computers having a high processing speed and occupying a small space are the trend of computer technology development. To meet the trend, high speed and high density connectors are developed, but noise is the main problem affecting such connectors. Therefore, the connectors are equipped with grounding contacts, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,026,292 and 5,051,099 and Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 79109775 and 80208341.
FIG. 1 of the present application appears as FIG. 3 in U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,292 ('292 patent) with different reference numbers. A grounding contact 3 is formed by stamping (blanking) a metal sheet to have a pair of cantilevered beams 30 each defining a contact portion 301 at a free end thereof. The contact portions 301 are connected to a common bight section 33. A terminal portion 32 extends downward from the bight section 33 to be soldered to a printed circuit board (not shown) for inducing noise received by the contact portions 301 to ground. A pair of projections 31 extend upward from the bight section 33 and engage with an internal wall of a housing of a connector (not shown) to hold the grounding contact 3 in position when the grounding contact 3 is mounted to the connector.
The grounding contact 3 of the '292 patent has been proven to successfully induce noise to ground; however, since the grounding contact 3 is made by blanking a metal sheet, the contact portions 301 thereof are formed with sharp edges which scrape and damage the contact traces on a daughter card when the daughter card is inserted into/withdrawn from the connector. Furthermore, the grounding contact 3 can only be mounted to the connector at a time, which is time consuming and laborious.
Hence, an improved grounding contact for a high speed, high density connector is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of current grounding contacts.